Quest for Glory V: Dragon Fire

A review by Michael Santovec for KEGS (Komputer Enthusiasts of Greater Seattle) - May 1999

Needed: A Hero

The once peaceful kingdom of Silmaria is in turmoil. The king has been assassinated. Marauders and strange beasts terrorize the countryside. A long since vanquished dragon is stirring in its den, waiting to again wreak vengeance on the land.

A new king will be chosen by the Rites of Rulership. Five heroes will compete in a series of quests to prove who is worthy to be king. Perhaps one or more of them was involved in the assassination, maybe even the plot the free the dragon. And is it just a coincidence that the marauders have stuck at the same time?

You have been asked to compete in the Rites of Rulership. This is the best way to uncover the assassin, and save the country. Who knows, you might even become king.



Game Play

Quest for Glory, is an Action/Adventure Role Playing Game (RPG) from Sierra. You can chose one of 4 characters to play: Fighter, Wizard, Thief or Paladin. Or you can import a character from a previous game in the Quest for Glory series.

As is typical of an RPG, each character has a variety of abilities and skills (e.g. strength, intelligence, luck, magic, throwing, lock picking, etc.) based on the type of character. The number of points for a skill indicates how good you are at it. At the beginning of the game you have 150 extra points to distribute as you like among your skills, or to give yourself a new skill (100 points minimum), such as the thief having the ability to cast magic spells. During the game you can increase your skills through practice and experience.

The game includes a difficulty adjustment so that you can change how challenging the combat and problems are. This can be adjusted during the game if you find things too hard to too easy.

The game starts in the relative safety of the walled city of Silmaria. The first things that you'll want to do is talk to the locals to find out what's going on, and find an inn to stay at since you'll need to eat and sleep regularly to maintain your health and stamina.

Your first major challenge will be to enter the Rites of Rulership. There's an entry fee which is more than the amount of money you start with. There are a variety of ways to make money in Silmaria. At the Dead Parrot Inn there are games of chance and skill. You can also bet on the gladiatorial games in the Arena, or participate as a fighter there (no magic allowed). You can go out into the countryside to kill the bad guys, and take the money and items that they have no further use for. Excess items can be sold to various merchants in town.

As a thief your options include burglary, pick pocketing and mugging. But it would be a good idea to join the Thieves Guild first. Benefits of membership include a practice dummy for pick pocketing, specialized tools, and a place to fence your stolen goods. But the Thieves Guild doesn't exactly advertise. It will take some work to locate them and get past the traps that protect the guild headquarters. There is also an opening for the head of the Thieves Guild. Who knows, you could become King of Thieves as well as King of Silmaria. Opportunities abound!

Most of the problems to solve are real world problems. You need to do what a person in that situation would need to do. I find this type of problem the more interesting. Then there are the artificial problems, such as the traps, which are mildly amusing to begin with but quickly become tedious.

Combat is real-time. You need to quickly and frequently click on your opponents with your weapon or spells to attack. And if you walk into a dangerous situation ill-prepared, you could be dead before get a chance to draw your weapon or cast a spell. Saving the game regularly is important. One nice feature of the game is an automatic save before combat. If you do die, you get the option to restore the game to just before you died. This may not be enough to save your hide, but at least you get a second chance.



Look and Feel

The game is played from a 3rd person perspective. The background scrolls and zooms in or out as you move your character around. The detail is good and colorful. A nice is touch is that the sky darkens as it gets late in the day and the stars come out.

The sound effects are good. The music is excellent and adds to the ambiance without being intrusive.

Movement and actions are controlled by keyboard or mouse. This generally worked well, although occasionally, the character didn't go quite where I clicked, as if there were some invisible barrier. In combat this can be a bit disconcerting. But with a little practice and quick reflexes, you can work around this.

The game includes controls to adjust the display size and detail level so that you get reasonable performance on a slow machine. However, unless you are using a seriously under powered PC, you shouldn't need to reduce the level.

The game's tone while generally serious, also includes lighthearted and comic touches.

System Requirements

List price for the game is $49.95. The same package works on both Windows and Macintosh.

The Windows requirements include: Win95, Pentium/166 (Pentium/200 recommended), 32 MB of RAM, 400-1,035 MB disk space, 6x CD-ROM (8x recommended), 640x480x16-bit color video, sound card, DirectX 6 (included on CD-ROM) and Quicktime for Windows 3 (included on CD-ROM).

The Macintosh requirements include: Mac OS 7.5, PowerPC 120 MHz (180 MHz recommended), 32 MB of RAM, 400-1,035 MB disk space, 6x CD-ROM (8x recommended), 16-bit color video.

You can have an unlimited number of save games, each of which takes about 100 KB of disk space.

The product was tested on Win98, Pentium/133 with 32 MB of RAM and a 16x CD-ROM. Although the processor was a couple notches below the minimum requirements, the game ran well at the maximum detail level.

The game comes on 2 CD-ROMs. The typical install (470 MB of disk space) loads the entire first CD-ROM to the hard disk. The minimal install saves about 70 MB by not loading the introductory movie to the hard disk. The full install loads both CD-ROMs to the hard disk. The net result is little or no CD swapping.

A patch for the game is available and should be installed before starting game play. You can get the patch using the Sierra Utilities that are installed when the game is installed, or go to the Quest for Glory V web site. Also available at the web site is more information on the game including a downloadable demo and a forum for help.

Ratings and Recommendation

The game is rated: Teen. It includes animated violence. However, due to the 3rd person perspective and distant view of the victims, it's not as gory as some other hack and slash games.

This is a complex, challenging and fun game. There's a lot to do and multiple ways to accomplish most tasks. With your choice of characters you can replay the game multiple times.

The game is highly recommended.